Highlighting the obtuse, the slanted and sometimes just plain ignorant writings found in The Gray Lady

Month: February 2016

No, it has nothing to do with that whole media hubbub about the nomination process.

Like we’ve mentioned before: The President of The Academy is a black woman. How racist can they be?

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This is about how wrong the media can be. And how we made money from it.

Like many in the world, we enjoy a good wager. And when we saw that the odds for Best Supporting Actor were screaming that Sylvester Stallone was a sure winner, well…we knew better. We took the long odds and went with the best acting job we’d seen all year: Mark Rylance in “Bridge Of Spies.”

Rylance got the Oscar. We cleaned up.

Rylance’s wasn’t a showy performance. In fact, he practically disappeared into his character. So much so that you couldn’t keep your eyes off him.

Rylance is British, from the stage and well known for his chops. He’s currently onstage in New York now. When “Bridge Of Spies” came out his performance was singled out in most reviews.

Yet, somehow, in the media’s “we-only-care-for-what’s-in-front-of-us-not-what’s-in-our-rear-view-mirror” attitude, every article prior to the Oscars touted Stallone as the overwhelming favorite.

Why? Because he’s a sympathetic old white guy? Because like lots of old Hollywood types he’s hyped on steroids and HGH (except Sly got busted for bringing HGH into Australia back in 2007)?

The facts released in Carson’s campaign fourth quarter spending statement showed that of the $22 million he raised, most of it was paid out to companies of his friends and associates who were in charge of – RAISING MONEY.

That’s right.

Carson’s entire campaign is essentially about getting money and paying it to his friends who got that money.

It’s all in his federal campaign forms.

And the national press has ignored it.

Carson continues to run even though he has no shot whatsoever to win. Why?

Because he and his friends can’t make money if he isn’t in the game. His websites are up and running and still seeking funds from his religious “true-believers.” How cynical is that, Doctor Carson? He’s still showing up – at churches – giving speeches. Getting money. True believers.

Ben Carson’s campaign has always been a national joke, run not by a professional campaign manager but by his personal business manager.

Why has the national press ignored these outrageous facts? Because they don’t take him seriously. They chose to ignore Ben Carson’s historically scandalous campaign finance scam.

The same way the press refused to take Donald Trump seriously for months and months and refused to challenge him, to set the record straight on his scandalous business dealings.

Now the nation is up to its neck with the mess of the fascistic Trump.

The problem is that there are those of us who do follow sports and have memories and know something more about players than just how many points they scored last week.

And for a NYT’s sportswriter to play up Paul George’s “feminine” side is a grotesque slap in the face of all women. Especially after the tweets George sent back in 2014 after Ravens running back Ray Rice knocked out his girlfriend in an elevator then dragged her like a rag doll from that elevator.

Paul George, in support of fellow professional athlete Ray Rice, said that if Ray’s girlfriend wasn’t “trippin” about the event, then Paul George wasn’t “trippin.” “lol.” (!) “Let that man play!”

Of course, George prefaced his comments by saying “hittin women” isn’t “coo.”

But then his logic is, if the woman doesn’t complain, NO BIG DEAL.

So, NYT’s cub reporter Scott Cacciola who wrote this piece extolling the sweet, feminine side of Paul George, is this the mindset of an NBA player who really supports women?

Or is it an NBA player who thinks a privileged, million dollar star athlete can punch out a woman, then drag her across the floor of a hotel like a rag doll, then expect to go right on playing and making millions of dollars from the public no matter what he does? LOL?

LOL. That is: “Lots of laughs”, to Paul George, when women get knocked out cold by big athletes.

Then there’s Paul George’s tweet about when it’s OKAY to HIT A WOMAN:

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So, just to keep this straight, Paul: If the woman hits you first, go right ahead and knock her out? Homie Ray Rice made the “mistake” of a straight-up hit?

This was less than a year and a half ago. September 2014. Recent event.

Yes, George got lots of support from certain quarters of supporters.

But the quarter that matters, Pacer’s President Larry Bird, came down on the other side. Bird came out with an apology from the Pacer’s organization and a dress-down on George. George later released his own public relations-written apology that was in such stark contrast to his tweets it was obvious George had no input whatsoever on its composition. He simply had to pretend he wrote it. For the public. For the press.

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We’ve made the point before with Peyton Manning and we’ll make it again here.

Why do these paid journalists expect us paying customers to buy heroic lies? Are they setting up Paul George to be more valuable as a million dollar spokesperson? Like Peyton Manning? By creating heroes for public consumption?

Babe Ruth was a drunken, womanizing baseball player. But a great player. We could accept that. If he beat up women when he was drunk, we wouldn’t accept that.

Paul George scores points. That’s all. Those who know more about him know he is no leader. There is no there there. Yet cub reporter Cacciola wants to spin a story around him that covers-up the truth of who he really is.

Duke’s Grayson Allen was given a pass by the ACC and his school, Duke University, after flagrantly tripping a Florida State player in a game Thursday night. Not only did the refs NOT call a foul, but the ACC conference and his coach Mike Krzyzewski think it’s no big deal. They didn’t suspend Allen, just apologized for him. Even though Allen in an earlier game was called for a flagrant foul for tripping ANOTHER player at Louisville and has had numerous other dirty-play incidents.

2 weeks ago the Big Ten conference suspended Maryland player Diamond Stone one game when the referee refused to make the right call of a flagrant 2 foul on Stone hitting an Ohio State player. Diamond Stone is black. Grayson Allen is white.

We must assume the ACC conference and Duke see a difference.

Need another example?

Earlier this season in a Pac-12 game an Oregon State player was supended 4 games for tripping a referee. That player was black.

It’s been a little over a week since the website SB Nation caused a national uproar by publishing a bizarrely wrong-headed piece that took a sympathetic slant toward a serial rapist. SB Nation quickly took down the piece and its publisher is reviewing all the editors involved in allowing that despicable piece to be published.

Today in the Sports section the lead was a huge glamorous, soft-focus picture of FIFA’s criminally corrupt Sepp Blatter and a story touting him as “a happy man,” “unbowed,” “wistful and whimsical” all the while ignoring how Blatter has corrupted FIFA to the point of making it one of the world’s largest, most profitable criminal organizations.

NYT’s cub reporters Sam Borden and Rebecca R. Ruiz slobbered so much over Sepp’s leather loafers he had to call in a Swedish lobby boy to polish off their saliva after the interview.

Our sources report Blatter had The Times cub reporters Borden and Ruiz tip the lobby boy as Sepp’s money is all locked up in his Zurich accounts by INTERPOL investigators.

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The New York Times no doubt promised Blatter a flattering story for the sake of the interview. Again, despicable.

Journalism at The Times reaches new lows every day now. With the (forced) retirement of public editor Margaret Sullivan, Executive Editor Dean Baquet and Publisher Art O. Sulzberger stroll lower and lower, arm-in-arm, toward that cesspool they view as The Future of Journalism.

Of course, anything embarrassing to Hillary Clinton is NOT going to be covered by the NYT’s.

Sure, we’ve heard of Black Lives Matter activists confronting candidates. But this time is different. This time, the activist reminds Hillary of her own words used in 1996 calling some blacks “super-predators.”

Say, what?

And here we thought Hillary was all in with the African-American community.

It’s a good thing some activists are doing their research. There is no better weapon against a politician than their own words.

What’s worse, the confrontation came at one of Hillary’s private, very expensive, undisclosed-to-the-press fundraisers at some big mansion.

And there are Hillary’s Big Money Hustlers hustling the activist straight out of The Man’s Big Mansion while Hillary drones on about nothing in particular – like all those 10 minute speeches she gave to all those Wall Street corporations and then collected $300k checks from.

And whether you like it or not, unless something miraculous happens, it’s going to be Hustling Hillary in the White House next year, kicking all the small people out the door while welcoming Big Money, Big Interest, Multinational Corporations in, and clearing the way for her and Bill NOT to be broke after they leave the White House THIS second time.

(If you don’t get the “broke” quote, it was used by Hillary as one of the rationalizations for charging 6-figures for all those speeches.)

Addendum: The Times on 2/26/16 published an opinion piece asking Hillary to release transcripts of her Big Money speeches which she has refused to do. The Times has NOT reversed its endorsement of Hillary as our next President.